Electrical blaze destroys home, ashes remain
A charred wreck is all that remains of a two-storey home in Levin after a fire tore through it.
Five crews from the Levin, Foxton, Waita¯rere Beach and Shannon volunteer fire brigades rushed to the blaze on Konini St after receiving calls at 10.20am yesterday.
As the Levin brigade pulled out of the station thick black smoke could be seen filling the sky, station officer Tim Rees said.
Neighbours watched from their homes and the street was flush with onlookers as the flames consumed the wooden home, bursting out the windows.
Armed with hoses and protected by breathing equipment, firefighters began an external assault on the blaze, working to protect nearby homes.
It took firefighters at least 30 minutes to bring the blaze under control. By 12.30pm they had fully extinguished the fire.
The fire severely damaged the house, gutting its left side. A front room was unreached by fire, but damaged by smoke, Rees said.
Fire investigators Anna Gordon, from Palmerston North, and Shane
Dudley, Whanganui, found the cause of the blaze was electrical, Fire and Emergency Manawatu¯ area commander Mitchell Brown said.
‘‘They’ll be doing some more analysis to see if it’s been damaged by rodents or been damaged and then failed.’’
As firefighters set down their hoses, the home’s owner looked on at the shell of a house he had been renovating.
His neighbour, Chey Wharerimu, called him when he discovered the blaze.
It looked like it had started from the lounge then spread through the home, with black smoke streaming out of the upper level, Wharerimu said.
Having driven more than 70km away for work in Tawa, northern Wellington, the owner asked Wharerimu to ward off the flames with a hose, but he was too late.
The fire had spread quickly and as windows smashed around him there was nothing he could do, Wharerimu said.
The home’s owner would be devastated after the amount of work he had put into renovating it.
‘‘He’s done so much to it. There was heaps of smoke on his side of the fence, so I moved all the cars.’’